ITHACA, N.Y. – The Ithaca College field hockey team made its return to Higgins Stadium for the penultimate regular-season contest on Sunday when it welcomed St. Lawrence for what turned out to be a resplendent autumn afternoon on South Hill. The Bombers were stellar on both ends during the course of the contest, racing past St. Lawrence in a 5-2 final to improve their record to 9-5 on the year and 4-1 in Liberty League play. The win shaves IC's magic number for making the Liberty League Tournament to just one game with two regular-season league contests remaining.
 
Ithaca entered the day looking to bounce back from its first league setback of the season this past Friday in a 3-2 overtime defeat at Skidmore. Looking to hone in on its first Liberty League Tournament berth since joining the league in 2017, IC knew that a victory would go a long way not only to solidify that opportunity, but also keep the Bombers in the mix among the upper echelon of the league standings. St. Lawrence also had some major significance riding on today's contest. The Saints were coming off a resounding 4-1 win at home against Union on Friday and were looking to parlay that momentum in an effort to pull back into the mix for a postseason berth after beginning the league slate 0-3.
 
Ithaca certainly rose to the occasion on both ends on Saturday. The Bombers matched a season high with five goals, while some furious defending on the other helped stymie a St. Lawrence attack that was able to generate a season-high 15 penalty corners, but only strike for two goals in the convincing 5-2 win.
 
Sophomore striker Morgan Mullen and sophomore back Victoria Sestito paced the IC attack with one goal and one assist apiece, while senior captain Kendall Keil also amassed three points all coming on assists. Sophomores Grace Ziehnert and Jacqueline Mirabile added goals for the Bombers, while first-year Elizabeth Pillow also joined in on the act with a scoring tally. The scoring strikes for Sestito and Pillow were both the first of their respective IC careers. Junior Kristen Rafferty also got on the score sheet with a lone assist on the day.
 
Defensively, senior keeper Savanna Lenker and the IC backline was quite busy throughout the day. Lenker earned the win to improve to 9-5 on the year with an excellent performance in the cage. She finished with nine saves in the contest. Mirabile aided the effort with a defensive save in a key moment of the second half, while IC's backline keyed by sophomore Anna Parrish, Sestito and junior Arleigh Rodgers stood strong against repeated attacking pressure from the Saints.
 
It was another fast start for the Bombers, who have been no strangers to snatching early leads this season and especially in league play. Ithaca has scored in the first quarter of every Liberty League contest this season and took just 2:22 into today's game to extend that streak. Working on the first penalty corner of the game, Sestito netted the opener on a fabulous play. The sophomore back has been a focal point of the penalty corner offense for IC all season, but had yet to have one of her thunderous slap shots enter the cage without a friendly redirect, as evidenced by her team-leading five assists entering the game. That plot changed on Sunday, as her slap-shot from the left wing traveled untouched through the scrum in front and perfectly into the far right corner to lift IC to the early 1-0 lead.
 
Ithaca continued to control play for much of the quarter, before the Saints put together their first sequence of attack pressure as the quarter concluded. Lenker stopped St. Lawrence's Mackenzie Haberl on successive shots from point-blank at the left post to ensure the Bombers would take a 1-0 lead to the first intermission.
 
St. Lawrence came out on the front-foot to begin the second quarter as well, but it would be Ithaca that had the last laugh in the quarter and would net another goal to double its advantage heading into halftime. It was another typical corner play that provided the tally, with Mirabile redirecting a Sestito shot from the left wing with 3:13 left in the quarter.
 
The third quarter was highly entertaining, as the teams connected for three goals in the period. It was St. Lawrence that raced out of the gates to begin the final half, as the Saints earned a penalty corner inside 30-seconds of the resumption of play. St. Lawrence finally made good on what was a litany of penalty corner chances, as Anna Parker scored off a cross-arc feed from Jackie Reiss to shave the IC lead to 2-1. St. Lawrence immediately went down and earned four additional penalty corner chances following the goal, but IC did well to maintain the tenuous one-goal lead.
 
Ithaca regained its footing as the quarter continued and found its offensive groove to effectively seal things heading into the fourth. Elizabeth Pillow netted her first collegiate goal on a nice counter-attacking play. First-year Brianna Lennon sparked the play on the right wing, working a pass to Rafferty at the top of the arc. The junior launched a shot towards the left post, which Pillow guided into the vacant cage to reestablish IC's two-goal advantage. Ziehnert added an insurance goal just before the end of the quarter, tapping home a back-post feed from Mullen to make things 4-1.
 
Mullen scored a goal of her own just 2:42 into the fourth quarter, slapping home a great deflection off a Kendall Keil feed to the front. Although St. Lawrence would add a second on a penalty corner chance roughly four-minutes later, the game was never in doubt as Ithaca sealed the convincing win.
 
Ithaca returns to action on Wednesday, October 23, when it hits the road to face SUNY Oneonta in a 5:00 p.m. non-league clash.